Two years after the Dec. 2, tragedy, small remnants remain of the memorial at the corner of Waterman Ave. & Orange Show Rd, for the victims of the Inland Regional Center mass shooting in San Bernardino, Ca., Thursday, November 30, 2017. (John Valenzuela/The Sun/SCNG)

The San Bernardino County Administrative Office has finally selected a consultant to assist with design proposals for a memorial to honor victims of the Dec. 2, 2015, terrorist attack at the Inland Regional Center.

But that is all that has been determined in the two years since the deadly attack at the IRC that killed 14 people, of which 13 were employees of the county’s Environmental Health Services Division. The exact location at the Government Center has yet to be chosen for the memorial. Additionally, a design has yet to be proposed or an artist selected.

Two years after the Dec. 2, tragedy, small remnants remain of the memorial at the corner of Waterman Ave. & Orange Show Rd, for the victims of the Inland Regional Center mass shooting in San Bernardino, Ca., Thursday, November 30, 2017. (John Valenzuela/The Sun/SCNG)

Two years after the Dec. 2, tragedy, small remnants remain of the memorial at the corner of Waterman Ave. & Orange Show Rd, for the victims of the Inland Regional Center mass shooting in San Bernardino, Ca., Thursday, November 30, 2017. (John Valenzuela/The Sun/SCNG)

Two years after the Dec. 2, tragedy, small remnants remain of the memorial at the corner of Waterman Ave. & Orange Show Rd, for the victims of the Inland Regional Center mass shooting in San Bernardino, Ca., Thursday, November 30, 2017. (John Valenzuela/The Sun/SCNG)

Two years after the Dec. 2, tragedy, small remnants remain of the memorial at the corner of Waterman Ave. & Orange Show Rd, for the victims of the Inland Regional Center mass shooting in San Bernardino, Ca., Thursday, November 30, 2017. (John Valenzuela/The Sun/SCNG)

Calvin Canepa’s painting titled “Mountain Tranquility” located at the San Bernardino County Government Center, is dedicated to the victims of the Inland Regional Center mass shooting on Dec. 2, 2015, San Bernardino, Ca., Thursday, November 30, 2017. (John Valenzuela/The Sun/SCNG)

Two years after the Dec. 2, tragedy, small remnants remain of the memorial at the corner of Waterman Ave. & Orange Show Rd, for the victims of the Inland Regional Center mass shooting in San Bernardino, Ca., Thursday, November 30, 2017. (John Valenzuela/The Sun/SCNG)

“The best answer is simply that these things take time — usually five to 10 years in other communities,” county spokesman David Wert said in an email. “The memorial will be with us forever, and it’s going to mean a lot to a lot of people. It’s best to take your time and get it right.”

One example of how long it can take, although considerably larger in scale, is the 9/11 Memorial in New York City. The memorial opened to the public on the 10-year anniversary of the terrorist attack. A museum opened at the location in 2014.

Additionally, the Columbine High School Memorial took eight years to complete. Five years after the mass shooting at the Century 16 movie theater in Aurora, Colorado that killed 12 people and wounded 70, a design has been proposed but no memorial built; and five years after the attack at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newton, Connecticut, where 20 children and six adults were killed, a design has yet to be proposed.

An existing memorial for the San Bernardino victims has been in place on the southeast corner of Waterman Avenue and Orange Show Road, north of the IRC, since the deadly shooting.

Memorial Committee Chairwoman and county Supervisor Josie Gonzales, on Nov. 16, sent a notice to committee members informing them of the latest developments since the last committee meeting on Aug. 10:

“The County Administrative Office has successfully completed the solicitation process and selected a consultant to facilitate the request for design proposals. The recommended consultant has extensive experience with public art projects and we are confident in their ability to guide the committee through the next steps in the process,” Gonzales said in her notice to the committee.

The Board of Supervisors was initially scheduled to consider approving a contract with the selected consultant at its meeting on Tuesday, Dec. 5, but that date has now been pushed back to Jan. 9 because staff from the County Administrative Office were still in talks with the consultant, Wert said in an email Friday.

Gonzales said in a telephone interview that committee members have made it clear what they would like to see in a memorial — something reflecting cultural diversity and in a quiet setting, whether it be a fountain, sculpture, or any other work of art.

Shortly before 11 a.m. on Dec. 2, 2015, county health inspector Syed Rizwan Farook, 28, and his wife, Tashfeen Malik, 29, opened fire on a group of mostly county environmental health services employees attending an all-day training event and holiday luncheon in a leased conference room at the IRC. The Redlands couple, who authorities said were radicalized Muslims, also planned to bomb the IRC but failed. The FBI declared at the time it was the deadliest terrorist strike on U.S. soil since 9/11.

The memorial committee is composed The Memorial Committee is composed of family members of those who died in the shooting, law enforcement representatives and officials from the County Administrative Office, as well as the departments of Public Health, Environmental Health Services and Real Estate Services.

The Memorial Committee is composed of survivors of the shooting or family members of those who died in the shooting, plus law enforcement representatives and officials from the County Administrative Office, as well as the departments of Public Health, Environmental Health Services and Real Estate Services. Gonzales was appointed in February 2016 by then Board of Supervisors Chairman James Ramos to serve as the committee chairwoman.

Julie Swann-Paez, a survivor of the attack and committee member, said she understands memorials can take years to plan, design and build, but can’t help feeling disconnected from it all now, as committee meetings have dwindled, from several in 2016 to only one this year, in August, which she said she couldn’t attend.

“I’m really not sure what’s going on because we only met once this year,” said Swann-Paez, 52. She did say she received Gonzales’ email from Nov. 16 informing committee members of the selected consultant.

In the meantime, while the memorial committee continues working on a permanent memorial, Swann-Paez said she would like to see a temporary memorial, such as photos of the 13 environmental health services employees who were killed or a plaque with all their names on it, in a common area of the Government Center, such as the foyer or next to Board of Supervisors’ chambers.

“I think there must be some recognition of them before the memorial is done. There should be something that recognizes that these employees of theirs lost their lives,” she said.

Wert said there is a memorial painting and plaque outside the Environmental Health Services Department on the second floor of the Government Center, and that none of the survivors have expressed a desire for anything more than that until the memorial is complete.

“In fact, the consensus among survivors has been that displaying photos of the deceased where EHS employees would have to see them every day would be traumatic,” Wert said, adding that the county doesn’t do anything related to the Dec. 2., 2015 terrorist attack without seeking consensus from the survivors.

The plaque, mounted on the wall outside the EHS department reads, “In honor of those taken from us, those who were wounded, and the countless others affected by the tragedy of December 2, 2015.” To the left of the plaque is a framed oil painting of a snowcapped mountain nestled among clouds and forest in the foreground.

“The wording on the plaque was approved by a consensus of the survivors,” Wert said. “The survivors have consistently wanted to honor the wounded and traumatized along with the deceased.”

Swann-Paez said the existing memorial at the Government Center isn’t enough to acknowledge that 14 people, 13 of whom were county employees, died in the attack. She said the plaque does not name the victims of the attack, and a painting of a mountain and forest hardly illustrates the tragedy and the lives lost. In fact, she said she and her friends were unaware of the painting and plaque until they were sent an invite to its unveiling.

When asked if the county would consider something more along the lines of what Swann-Paez prefers, Wert said the memorial committee has not made any mention of anything like that.

“No one has ever expressed an interest in anything like that,” Wert said in an email.

Editor’s note: This story has been revised since its initial posting to correct information about the makeup of the memorial committee.

Other Memorials

In this file photo, a woman grieves at her husband’s memorial at the South Tower Memorial Pool during memorial observances on the anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks on the World Trade Center in New York, Thursday, Sept. 11, 2014. (AP Photo/The New York Times, Chang W. Lee, Pool)

9/11 Memorial

A pair of hijacked airliners slammed into the World Trade Center’s north and south towers in New York City on Sept. 11, 2001, killing more than 2,700 people.

Memorial took 10 years to complete. A museum opened at the location in 2014.

Columbine Memorial

Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris killed 13 people in a shooting on April 20, 1999, at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado.

Memorial took eight years to complete.

Aurora Memorial

James Holmes opened fire on a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado on July 20, 2012, killing 12 people and wounding 70 others.

Five years later, a memorial design has been proposed but no memorial built.

Sandy Hook Memorial

Adam Lanza killed his mother inside their Newtown, Connecticut home on Dec. 14, 2012, before he drove to Sandy Hook Elementary School and opened fire, killing 20 children and six adults.

Joe Nelson is an award-winning investigative reporter who has worked for The Sun since November 1999. He started as a crime reporter and went on to cover a variety of beats including courts and the cities of Colton, Highland and Grand Terrace. He has covered San Bernardino County since 2009. Nelson is a graduate of California State University Fullerton. In 2014, he completed a fellowship at Loyola Law School's Journalist Law School program.

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